


Ocean Secrets

by Otterly



Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: OC
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-28
Updated: 2017-04-28
Packaged: 2018-10-24 21:42:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10750371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Otterly/pseuds/Otterly
Summary: A wolf parks his boat in a harbour, and encounters a fox at the nearest pub.





	Ocean Secrets

**Author's Note:**

> For Thematic Thursday: High Seas

Miles is a wolf on the run. He’s relaxed right now, but there’s a very specific feeling that you get when you’re on the run and it’s like a lazy worm in the back of your head. It writhes and pulses and even if it doesn’t move it’s still _there_ , which is why when Miles holds a martini in his hand, it’s shaky and looks like it’ll spill any minute.

His boat is a fine size. It’s not one of the huge monstrosities that he grew up with, but it’s alright for now. He has a bed, and that’s more than what he had a few days ago.

He learned about the ocean from his father, and it’s his father that he thinks of whenever he takes another breath of the salty breeze. He remembers the stories that he was told as a child: the stories of how his father’s pack came to this country on a boat, how his father nearly died at sea, how his father made the sea his bitch and how his father became the king of it. The stories stay solid in his mind. They give him a small comfort that makes all the difference. They remind him why he’ll be fine.

He’s tired, and there’s no one left, but he’ll be fine. He has to be.

His mother and his sisters sit in their mansion in Zootopia, and they’re wondering where he is. If spends another week without sending another letter, they will assume that he’s been caught and then they’ll have to move on with their lives. He doesn’t want that.

Another day has almost passed when his impulses get the better of his hungry mind. That was always his problem. The impulses. Give him the chance for pleasure and he’d take it. No matter the situation, no matter the money, no matter how the ramifications affect him. Tonight’s impulse is a quick stop at the harbor, and he figures ‘why not?’ so he makes his way towards it.

When he steps foot on the docks, he almost falls. There are twitches in his legs — for shaking and balancing. The concept of rooted ground is almost alien. After the necessary actions and precautions, he finds himself in a lively seaside town, filled with wolves and coyotes speaking a language he doesn’t understand.

Despite all the reasons why he shouldn’t, he manages to find the bar. He expects exactly what he gets: An old establishment, with sailors and criminals drunkenly spilling rum on its rotten wood floors.

When he walks in, a third of the place goes silent. They stare at him, hunger in their eyes.

I have hunger too, he thinks to himself, I’m hungry and I know how to fight and I have a gun in my back pocket, so please stop looking at me, because I can’t get into a fight right now but I will.

Ultimately, they do as he wishes. He takes a seat in front of the bartender, and orders a double shot of whiskey. He remains there for three hours until someone taps him on the shoulder.

Miles meets her eyes and falls in love. They’re blue like the sky, and they both betray her optimism and her desire to fuck him senseless. He surveys the rest of her body. Curvaceous and slim, like most other arctic foxes. Her clothes are moderately cheap, but they fit and they look good on her. Her fur is the same color as his, but it’s a little unkempt. Scruffy, but not oily. It reminds him of the mechanics that he visits on occasion, when his boat malfunctions or something breaks. They visit him in their fancy suits, but they’re never able to scrub the oil off their bodies enough to look truly clean. He hasn’t had time for mechanics lately. When a boat breaks, he simply steals another.

“Hi,” the fox purrs, looking like she’s holding back a giggle. “How are you, tonight?”

“Better, now that I’m talking to you,” he replies. “May I just say that you look beautiful, miss…”

“Skye,” she says. “Maybe I’ll tell you my last name later. And your name is?”

“Mike. We can swap our last names when you feel comfortable enough to. Can I buy you a drink?”

She orders a Manehattan, and the way she sips at it drives him wild. Her lips, naturally red and unpainted, are luscious and they’d definitely look better around his cock. His eyes widen. He’s obsessed, and this is dangerous. The worm in his head wriggles again, sensing something wrong. “Not that I’m complaining, but why are you talking to me? You have a whole bar of misfits to choose from.”

“I was watching you for a long time. Originally, I thought that I’d leave you to the vultures,” Skye motions to the raving patrons of the bar. “But you grew on me. You’re really cute, you know? Cute enough to charm the devil herself. You have these eyes that scream ‘help me’. I like to help people.”

“Don’t need help,” he tells her, before visibly reconsidering. “Unless…”

“What?” She looks like a kit, with bright eyes and zero disposition.

“I’ve been lonely. Forgive me for being so blunt.”

“Oh?” Skye sips at her drink, nearly finished. “Well, I can be nice company. People at work tell me that, all the time.”

“And where do you work?”

“There’s a car repair shop at the edge of town. It belonged to my father, and now I take care of it. Make sure it doesn’t go out of business. It’s not the most attractive job, I know…”

“No, no, it’s great!” Miles grips his drink, excited. The alcohol has started to get to him. It really has been too long since he’s had a conversation. “It’s honest work. Good work. You’re very attractive, trust me.”

She looks like she’s about to say something, but she stuffs it. “Thank you.”

“So, what’s a mechanic doing in this part of town? I haven’t seen the rest of it, but there are surely better places than this.”

“I was supposed to meet someone here,” she says. “But he didn’t show up.”

“Good.”

She giggles like mad, and fixes those pretty little eyes on him.

A silence falls around their mutual smile. The sounds of the bar come back to their ears. A group of wolves are about to get into a fight over an unpaid debt. The bartender is on the verge of kicking a hippo out of the establishment, and how he’s going to do this is with the knife taped underneath the table. Chaos is about the reign, that much is clear.

“Mike?” Skye asks, reaching over and touching his paw. “What do you say we get out of here?”

“Oh,” Miles almost forgets that he put himself out of cash with that last drink. “I’m not staying in a hotel or anything. Just my boat. I wasn’t planning on staying here too long.”

“Boat?” Her eyes go wide. “Can we go to it? I _love_ the ocean.”

They exit the bar immediately, just as the first punch is thrown by one of the wolves. Glass breaks over someone’s head and a female screams loud. The shouts drown out everything else, but the fox and the wolf don’t pay it any mind. They flee in haste, strolling down a street that Miles doesn’t remember walking down. Moonlight shines down on them, blurring their eyes until they finally reach the docks.

Neither knows what to say, so Skye wraps an arm around Miles. The warmth they share is invaluable.

“Will you drive me somewhere? Out to the ocean?” Skye asks, with her voice that makes it impossible to refuse. “I want to see the stars on the water.”

Miles decides that he does, too. They enter the boat, and he drives. He wants to go far. Enough so that no one can hear them when the night reaches its inevitable conclusion. He drives and smells the ocean breeze, and the scent of the fox beside him, and when he finally decides to stop he drives his lips into hers.

She falls apart under his touch, and they drop to the hard floor.

Fox lips are soft. Fox fur is soft. Fox eyes have a soft gaze. Miles decides that he wants to marry a vixen. _This_ vixen, maybe. She’d make a good wife. He doesn’t know too much about her, but he knows that. He figures that it’s something you can sense on a mammal, whether or not you could spend the rest of your life with them.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I barely let you admire the view.”

“It’s okay.” There are tears in her eyes. They haven’t fallen yet, building more and more as Miles examines the look on her face. “It’s okay.”

“What’s wrong?”

She shakes her head. “I fucked up, but it’s okay. I want you to kiss me better. I’m already in this. I want you.”

Better mammals will call him cold, but Miles believes in sharing when you’re ready to. Her tears will stop if he kisses them away, so he does. Her paws roam the entirety of his body, and he’s captured by her touch. The ocean sways softly as they make love on the deck. The stars go without admiration.

 

* * *

 

He’s brought back to the world after his nightmare for the night drops him there. At some point, they ended up on his double bed. Sheets are tossed to the floor, piled by his side like the sort of nest that a homeless mammal would reside in. Miles looks at Skye. He examines the fur of her back, stroking it like it’s going give him good luck, somehow. He laughs to himself. He should know better.

“You know,” he begins to say. “My dad came to Zootopia on the ocean. He says that it’s our home. Not wolves, of course. Wolves belong with the grass. Not us, though. When he was on the boat that was taking us to this god-forsaken country he almost died. And the ocean whispered to him. It told him secrets. Things that he would never tell me. But those secrets made us rich and now we have nothing and we’re waiting to die. Our friends have abandoned us, too. I think the ocean might, as well.”

“Mike?” Skye murmurs, feeling behind her, not hearing what was just said.

Miles holds her paw and kisses it. Her figure is beautiful in the moonlight.

“Better places than this,” he repeats to himself, recalling his earlier words from the bar. He settles back into the bed with his vixen, and falls asleep stroking the smooth fur on her stomach. Before he fades he wonders if there’s a bug in the bed.

* * *

 

The window lights the ray of sun streaming through the window. Miles opens his eyes, and he’s alone. No Skye, no clothing. The sheets are back on the bed, wrapped around him in a comforting little burrito. Her spot beside him is still warm, so he figures that she’s out on the deck. Maybe she’s looking out at the view. He knows that he would be, if he hadn’t spent hours upon hours on the sea.

Rustling. His ears hear another mammal on the boat, and he figures that his suspicions are confirmed. It’s Skye. Where would she have gone, anyway? They’re out on the ocean. Far enough so that they weren’t bothered.

Miles smooths his hair down and gets out of bed. He doesn’t bother dressing.

He walks to the door, and as soon as his door is open, something pins him to the wall.

A bear. There’s a bear in military uniform and she’s holding him down, and now he’s being put in handcuffs. He’s shoved out onto the deck, naked, and thrown onto the surface. There’s a mix of shame and fear in him. The kind that he would feel as a child. He hopes that Skye is safe. She doesn’t deserve any rough treatment.

There are boats all around. Coastguard, but with all the suits he assumes that the ZIA are here too.

A bunny — one of the suits — strides up to him, and tells him why he’s being arrested. He tunes it out. He already knows. He doesn’t need a lecture on why murder, smuggling, and slaving is wrong. He doesn’t want it. At the end of his charges, though, the bunny says something peculiar.

“What did you say?” Miles asks. “Who?”

The bunny tilts his head, and grins. “I said, Skye really did a number on you, didn’t she?”

“I,” he begins, almost losing his sentence but finding it again. “She did. Yes.”

Mere minutes pass before they’ve shoved him into one of their boats and tossed a raggedy blanket on him. He watches as his boat shrinks on the horizon. He watches them tow it away, like it was just a vehicle and it wasn’t the thing keeping his family alive. He closes his eyes, words not reaching the void forming in his chest, and he thinks of Skye.


End file.
